Paris Journal; For the Tobacconists of France, Life's a Pack of Trouble

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

Published: November 13, 2003

The art of selling cigarettes belongs to the country's 34,000 ''buralistes,'' or tobacconists, a profession classified as a monopoly that is protected and licensed by the state.

So when President Jacques Chirac (a former chain smoker) declared a ''war on tobacco'' last May and imposed the second of three steep tax increases on cigarettes last month, the tobacconists of France counterattacked.

They went on strike for the first time. They staged telegenic protests, burning mountains of cigarettes in town squares.

They complained that sales had plummeted because of illegal smuggling from places like tiny Andorra, where cigarettes are 60 percent cheaper than in France. They claimed that their merchandise had become so valuable that their shops had been the targets of a new breed of armed robbers who ram cars into storefronts, a tactic previously used mostly to rob jewelry stores.

''This is a difficult, dangerous profession that became much harder after the prices went up,'' said Jean Louis Toreau, 54, whose shop in a rough neighborhood in the Paris suburb of St.-Michel-sur-Orge has been robbed three times in the last five years.

Last Thursday, after two armed robbers made off with cases of cigarettes (as well as the cash in his register, DVD's, prepaid telephone cards and lottery tickets), Mr. Toreau decided to sue the government for failure to protect his livelihood.

''Someone has to pay for the damage that was caused to me, physically, financially and morally,'' he said.

The cause of the cigarette-sellers has become a hot political issue. The far-right National Front party of Jean-Marie Le Pen has taken up their cause, portraying them as hardworking, law-abiding little people abandoned by Mr. Chirac's center-right government.

Indeed, cigarette vendors fulfill a number of civic functions. They can sell postage stamps, phone and parking space cards, newspapers and tickets for the lottery and Métro.

In a letter to the tobacconists of the Rhône region this week, Bruno Gollnisch, the party's No. 2 (and an enthusiastic cigar smoker whose mother was born in a cigar factory), wrote, ''You represent in reality the primary network of commerce in our country.''

The Socialists accuse the government of hypocrisy, charging that the additional taxes do not pay for concrete health and smoking prevention programs but simply ''fill up the coffers of the state.''

Tobacco smoking is so engrained in French history that nicotine is named after Jean Nicot, a 16th-century French ambassador to Portugal who took Catherine de Medici tobacco leaves imported from America to cure her migraines.

Until 1991 the French state itself held stock in the Seita tobacco company, which once dominated the French tobacco market.

Now Mr. Chirac is pitching his war on smoking as the main pillar of a five-year, $580 million campaign against cancer. An estimated 30,000 people in France die annually from cancer caused by smoking. France leads Europe in male cancer deaths and the rate of Frenchwomen dying from cancer is growing faster than elsewhere in Europe. The tax increases on tobacco will raise the price of a pack by more than 50 percent to $6.40 by next year, and coincide with a ban on cigarette sales to people under 16 and a crackdown on smoking in public spaces.

Battles to simultaneously combat smoking and protect the livelihood of the tobacco-sellers have put the government in a bind.

Health Minister François Mattei, for example, has announced that he wants every smoker in France to quit, a goal that would put the tobacconists out of business. But the rise in smuggling and armed robberies forced the law-and-order interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to propose a tobacconist protection plan last weekend ''in order not to let down this profession.'' He said he would unveil it on Thursday.

In the tiny southern town of Barjac early this month, 51-year-old Jacques Boffin committed suicide, apparently because business was so bad. In Paris on Wednesday, a tobacconist was hospitalized after he was attacked during a robbery.

If it is becoming harder to be a cigarette vendor, it always has been hard to become one. Candidates must have no criminal record, be a citizen of France or another country of the European Union, pay a stiff fee, submit to a ''morality investigation'' and put down a 25 percent cash deposit on the licensed tobacco shop they are taking over.

Cigarettes can be sold only in ''tabacs,'' stand-alone tobacco shops, or in tobacco stands in bars or restaurants. They must be a certain distance from competitors. In a rural area of fewer than 750 inhabitants, for example, the next tabac must be more than 10 minutes away by car.

Now, many tabacs have begun to sell a new product: reusable cardboard slips to cover the ''Smoking Kills'' messages on cigarette packs. A cover with the fake brand name ''Tomorrow'' continues with the line, ''I'll stop.''

Colette, the chic Parisian water bar that offers dozens of brands of water, also sells anti-antismoking stickers. ''Thinking can cause a slow and painful death,'' says one sticker. ''Living kills,'' says another.

Photos: A demonstrator protesting price increases in Toulouse in southwestern France last month carried a sign reading ''Tobacconists on strike.'' (Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images); Jean Louis Toreau, whose tobacconist shop in the Paris suburb of St.-Michel-sur-Orge was robbed last week for the third time in five years, is suing the government, accusing it of failure to protect his livelihood. (Photo by Ed Alcock for The New York Times)